


Falling in Love With You

by HisAngelThursday



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gentle Castiel, Kissing, Loving Castiel, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 22:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11427972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisAngelThursday/pseuds/HisAngelThursday
Summary: Alone in the bunker, Dean is depressed, unsure anyone truly loves him, and deeply tired of having to be strong.Castiel comes home to pick up the pieces.





	Falling in Love With You

Dean wasn’t okay.  If you asked him, he’d never reply as such, but he wasn’t and he hadn’t been for a long time.  Maybe not since he was four years old.

By and large, his emotional state was stable.  He went through periods of happiness and contentment, when he played cards and laughed with his brother and angel, with Charlie and Kevin, when he texted his mom and she replied quickly, when he lay on his memory foam mattress and remembered how grateful he was to have it.

But the depression would always come back, the painful hollowness deep in his gut, beneath his ribcage, a void that could never be filled.  

For a while, he thought it might go away when Mary came back, but it didn’t.  Mary’s absence was an old wound, possibly his oldest, but it was also a wound that had long since healed.  Messy, scarred over, and painful, but it had healed. He’d groan accustomed to her absence, grown comfortable with the borderline mythological figure he’d made her into.

He was glad to have her back, of course, and he wouldn’t let her go again for anything in the world.

But with her presence came the uncomfortable realization that she’d never be able to reach the pedestal he’d put her on.  She’d never be his Virgin Mary, existing only to nurture him, to warm him with the golden sunshine of her endless, effortless, and uncomplicated love.  

No, this Mary was human.  She was messy, she was emotionally inept, and by and large, she was a lot like him.  Dean was still learning to cope with this fact.  

With it had come another uncomfortable realization entirely:  what Dean had wanted back, what he’d needed back, most in the world wasn’t Mary.  Not the idealized version of her he’d created, anyway.  

What Dean really wanted back was his childhood.  He wanted the chance to be someone’s baby, a chance he’d missed and was never getting back.  It had been taken from him before he was even old enough to realize it was missing.  It had been taken from him when he’d been forced to become a parent at four years old.

Dean hated this kind of realization. Just as he hated the realization that most of the time, what he was after when he went out to find someone to sleep with, nine times out of ten he wasn’t searching for sex at all, but intimacy.  Love.  The kind a person like him couldn’t find anywhere else.

It was why his favorite type of girl was the kind who’d stroke his hair and call him endearments afterwards,  _baby_  and  _sweetheart_  and  _darlin’_ , why his favorite type of guy was the kind who’d whisper to him about how beautiful he was while they were going at it.

Dean didn’t want to know this.  Sex was supposed to be his relief, his means of getting away from the world. Now even that was tainted with how hopelessly messed up he was.  

So today, he didn’t bother going out. No one else was home:  Sam was out helping Mom out with a hunt, and Charlie had dragged Kevin to a Doctor Who convention in Washington. Cas was checking out a demon sighting in Texas.

It was just him, Skinemax, and a bottle of whiskey.  The goal tonight was to turn off his brain, to stop thinking, and it wasn’t working.  

God, Dean didn’t know if he’d ever actually been in love before.  He thought he’d been in love with Lisa, but now he wasn’t sure;  he’d _loved_  her, definitely, but that didn’t necessarily mean he’d been  _in_  love.  He’d never even thought of her as anything other than a fun, bendy chick who liked to have a good time until he found out she was a mom.  

Could his entire relationship with Lisa have been based on some fucked up desire for a mother?  

The concept was not a welcome one, and Dean took another swig of his whiskey, turning up the volume on his porn.  Jesus Christ.  Freud would have a picnic with him.

If being in love constituted as how strongly he felt towards someone, he’d probably have picked Cas. Maybe even Benny, to a slightly lesser extent.  But Dean knew that wasn’t a possibility:  he wasn’t gay.  Sure, he had sex with guys occasionally, but that just made him flexible.  He knew plenty of straight men who liked to experiment.  Hell, he’d even slept with a few of them

That was Dean’s reasoning, anyway.

So that settled it, then:  Dean had never truly been in love.  The thought had him tipping the bottle up once more, taking five chugs of the bitter liquid before slamming it back down on the table again.

God, he just wanted love.  He wanted to give it, and he wanted to receive it.  He wanted to be the center of someone’s world, he wanted to be taken care of, he wanted to be loved and to love in return, romantically or otherwise.  

Sammy didn’t count, Dean thought, because it wasn’t like he had anywhere better to go at this point. He’d had a life to look forward to once, a better life.  That had been taken away from him.  Now, all he had left was Dean.  

Charlie was fond of him, maybe Kevin too.  But did they love him?  By Dean’s reasoning, probably not.  Why would they, when he’d dragged them into this Godforsaken life to begin with, nearly gotten them killed on multiple occasions?  

His mom probably loved him.  Probably. The alcohol was exacerbating the doubt he felt on a daily basis about that.  Right now, he felt that mostly what she loved was the little kid she’d known, who he’d once been and would never be again.  Or maybe the idea she had for him, the normal, respectable life he could have led.  But not him.  Not this pathetic, broken drunk he’d become, barely on the outermost fringes of society.  Just one step shy of being an animal.  

Dean swigged his whiskey again.

Then there was Cas.  Beautiful, loyal, clueless Cas, who stood by Dean because he didn’t know any better. The angel he had ruined, whose wings he’d broken, who came back to him again and again and again.  Not even Heaven or Hell or death itself could keep the stupid bastard away.

And Dean…Dean didn’t know what to make of that.  He didn’t have much time to reflect on it, either, because he’d just downed half a bottle of whiskey in less than fifteen minutes.  It was making his head swim, so much so that he had to set it down on the table just to get it to stop.  His eyelids felt heavy, the moans of the guy getting plowed growing dim in the background.  Before Dean knew it, he was asleep.

 

…

 

Dean was jogged a few minutes to a few hours later by a hand gently shaking his shoulder.

“Dean,”  a familiar voice grumbled. “Dean, wake up.  It’s time for you to go to bed.”

“…I know,” Dean mumbled, into the table.  “S'why I’m  _sleepin’._ Dumbass.”

Cas sighed, heavily.  Dean could just picture him rolling his eyes.  “ _Dean._ ”  

“Fuck off, Cas.  M'tryin’ to sleep.”

“Then you can do so in bed.”

Dean only grunted dismissively in reply, but Cas wasn’t taking no for an answer.  Next thing he knew, he was being unexpectedly hoisted up, bridal style, by some unnaturally strong angelic arms.

“Mmmf.  Where’re you takin’ me,” Dean slurred, still too out of it to properly protest the situation.

“I told you, Dean,” Cas said simply, voice mildly exasperated.  “To bed.  It is after midnight.”

Jeez.  He’d been passed out longer than he’d thought.  He thought his tolerance for alcohol would have been higher by this point.

Sure enough, the next thing Dean knew, he’d been plopped on his memory foam mattress.  He looked down, world still fuzzy as Cas tugged off his combat boots. 

“Nonono,”  he protested.  “I sleep with m'shoes on.  Dad always says, I gotta be ready for, for an emergency.”  

“You haven’t slept in your shoes in years, Dean,” Cas corrected him gently, kindly neglecting to remind him that his father was long dead.

Cas neatly lined the shoes up at the foot of Dean’s bed.  He wanted to take off Dean’s clothes as well ( _only_ because it would be more comfortable for him to sleep that way, thank you very much) but he knew enough about human social customs to register that that would be inappropriate.

So he just got to his feet, turned around, and made ready to leave.

“Cas,” Dean’s voice slurred, halting him.  Cas turned to look at him, expectantly.  “Cas, do you think…”  Dean swallowed hard, eyes pink-rimmed and dewy.  “Do you think anyone actually loves me?”

Cas turned to face him fully, brow rumpled in concern.  “Dean, what are you talking about?  Of course people love you.”

Dean scoffed.  “Yeah?  Like, like who?”  he slurred out, voice suddenly snide and doubtful.  

“Sam, for one.  Your mother. Charlie, Kevin,” Cas replied, calmly.  “Bobby is in Heaven, but I’m sure he constitutes.  Jody, Claire.  All of us care deeply for you Dean,” he assured him.

Dean swallowed, looking at Cas through narrow, tired eyes.  “You, too?” he murmured, voice barely audible now.

Cas wet his lips.  “Yes, Dean,” he assured him.  “Me too.”

Dean’s brow crumpled briefly, painfully, eyes squeezing shut.  A single tear rolled down the side of his nose.  

“Will you stay with me, Cas?”  

Cas blinked, taking a moment to process the request.  

Dean held his arms out in front of him, like a child asking to be held.  “Please,” he whispered.  He felt pathetic, even in his drunken state, but he wanted this so badly.  He needed it, deep in his soul.  Maybe he always had.  

He was so, so tired of being strong.

Cas wet his lips.  “Of course, Dean,” he said finally.  “I’ll stay with you.”

Dean was almost crying with relief as Cas climbed awkwardly into bed, on top of the blankets beside him. He wasn’t used to being in bed, hadn’t been for a while, and it showed.  But at the moment, it was all Dean could have ever wanted, all Dean could ever need.  

Having Cas here with him made his world complete.

He looked into Castiel’s eyes then, and in that moment, he saw all the love he’d ever wanted, all the love he’d ever craved.  As endless and unfathomable as the seven seas.

“Cas,” he whispered, voice a drunken rasp.  Those eyes never blink as he runs his hand, gently, down the side of his face, feeling the delicate prickle of his stubble.  “You’ve been here all along, haven’t you?  You’ve always been waitin’ for me, all this time.”

Cas didn’t flinch at Dean’s odd wording.  “Yes, Dean,” he answered, softly.  “Always.”  

They don’t have sex, obviously.  Cas just holds him, kissing his forehead gently, over and over, his beautiful voice murmuring to him all the things he’s ever needed to hear.

“ _It’s alright.”_

“ _You’re perfect.”_

“ _I love you.”_

“ _I love you.”_

“ _I love you.”_

Dean, only semi-coherent, barely registers the warm tears running down his cheeks and nose, dampening his eyelashes.  Tears of relief more than of sorrow.

He barely registers that the last thing he mumbles before he slips into unconsciousness is, “I love you, too.”

He barely registers that for the first time, he really means it.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are my lifeforce, and kudos are love. <3


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